Information, particularly business information, like the amount payable for a certain sales order has a life cycle that often begins with creation of a Business Object (the sales order) in an IT system. Here the sales order can be viewed as data carrying the information. During its lifecycle the information (amount payable for the order) is passed to other business objects like the invoice or copies of the extracts of the original data that are copied to Information warehouses. Each of these pieces of data has a lifecycle that ends with the disposition/destruction of the data. The end of the life cycle of the Information is reach when the last bit of data containing the information is destroyed. Prerequisite for the management of the lifecycle of information is the knowledge of the information flow between data and a uniform life cycle management of the data carrying the information. In other words, data could be considered a concrete materialization of information.
Such information and data (collectively referred to as “information”), particularly business information, have a life cycle that often begins with creation of the information and concludes with the disposition/destruction of the information. During a portion of information's life cycle, the information may be subject to use and modification depending upon changes occurring during the course of the information's use. However, during another portion of the information's life cycle, the information may go unchanged for a period of time. In fact, during such a time period (i.e., “retention period”), all modification to the data may be prohibited and the information may be available only for review, i.e., the information may (effectively) be available in read-only form. During the retention period, the information may be stored in a long-term storage system or archive. This may be particularly desirable when the information is no longer needed or useful in the course of use and can be transferred to a dedicated storage system such that it benefits—or doesn't substantively adversely effect—a business operation, perhaps by improving efficiency of applicable or related systems or applications.
At some point during the retention period, the information may be destroyed according to various reasons, such as legal requirements, business policies, and so forth. In other situations, the information may become relevant to or evidence in a legal matter or proceeding. Thus, notwithstanding otherwise applicable reasons, the information requires extended retention for use to resolve the legal proceeding. Further, other legal requirements or business policies may necessitate retention of the business information in a particular physical location while destroying similar business information in others.